When did the trap bath split occur?

The split appeared in southern English pronunciation in the mid-17th century and it’s not clear why it affected some words and not others, though there is a clear tendency for it to appear in shorter and more commonly used words.

How do Northerners say grass?

When travelling through the North of England, people will say the words ‘bath’ and ‘grass’ using the short vowel sound ‘a’ (the same ‘a’ sound used in words like ‘cat’). Unlike their Northern neighbours, Southerners tend to adopt the long vowel sound ‘ah’ when pronouncing the words ‘bath’ and ‘grass’.

Why do British people say bath?

Around a century later, Londoners took the pronunciations a step further, so “laugh” sounded like “larf”. This way of speaking spread out over southern England and stuck, but from south of Birmingham upwards, people kept with the traditional way of saying words like “laugh”, “grass” and “bath”, with a single “a”.

What is the foot strut split?

The FOOT– STRUT split is the split of Middle English short /u/ into two distinct phonemes: /ʊ/ (as in foot) and /ʌ/ (as in strut). The split occurs in most varieties of English, the most notable exceptions being most of Northern England and the English Midlands and some varieties of Hiberno-English.

What is the trap vowel?

English has two vowels that can convey different words like ‘bad’ and ‘bed’. to be pronounced with TRAP: “trap,” “hand.” And some of these words came to be pronounced with the long vowel /ɑː/– “bath,” “dance.” Hence, the name TRAP-BATH split. …

How do Southerners say aunt?

Starts here2:53How to Pronounce ANT & AUNT ‍ – American English Pronunciation …YouTube

What is North London accent?

A Cockney is a certain type of Londoner. The term mainly refers to speakers of the distinctive Cockney dialect of English used in and around London, particularly by the working and lower-middle classes; especially people from the East End, or, traditionally, people born within earshot of Bow Bells.

What is a nurse vowel?

Starts here4:30How To Pronounce The NURSE Vowel in a Standard British English …YouTube

How do the Welsh pronounce bath?

In some varieties such as Cardiff English, words like ask, bath, laugh, master and rather are usually pronounced with /ɑː/ while words like answer, castle, dance and nasty are normally pronounced with /æ/.

What is the TRAP-BATH split?

Four little words: The Trap-Bath Split. Let me explain. In most American accents, we pronounce trap, cat, and bad with roughly the same vowel as ask, can’t and laugh. This is what we refer to as the short-a sound.

Does your character have a TRAP-BATH split accent?

When you have confirmed that your character indeed has a Trap-Bath Split accent, such as Standard British (RP) or Cockney, here are a few pointers: 1.) Understand which words generally fall into the Bath category. Here are the types of words that usually are pronounced with this broad-a:

Is the New York City “tense-lax” split related to the TRAP-BATH split?

For what it’s worth, it is often suggested that the “tense-lax” split in New York City is a relative of the Trap-Bath split (But that’s a post for another day). Ben T. Smith launched his dialect fascination while working in theatre.